As he comes to the end of his first letter, the Apostle Peter pastors the pastors. Having been charged by Jesus himself to “feed my lambs” and “tend my sheep” (John 21:15-17), Peter exhorts “the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge…” (1 Pet 5:1-2). To establish his … More The With-God Life: Suffering and Unity
A couple of rules I live my life by: Use the lectionary as an opportunity to read scriptures that are easy to skip over. Don’t embarrass myself or anyone else by writing about sex. Normally, these two don’t come into conflict. But I’m writing a daily series of devotions, and today’s readings include some verses … More The With-God Life: Song of Songs
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through … More The With-God Life: Ambassadors
It’s been almost four years since I first considered the idea of writing a spiritual biography of Charles A. Lindbergh, and three years since I signed the contract for that book with Eerdmans. And the calendar will have turned to 2021 before anyone can actually pick up a copy of that book. But yesterday I … More My Lindbergh Biography Is One Step Closer to Publication…
Apart from sharing the news of our history devotional that’s coming out in December, it was a quiet blogging week for me, as I moved into the last stages of writing my Lindbergh manuscript. Elsewhere: • #EverythingHasAHistory, including protests at historic sites. • On the same day, Princeton announces that it’s dropping Woodrow Wilson’s name … More That Was The Week That Was
We don’t live all that close to the places in Minneapolis and St. Paul that have seen actual violence in recent days. But last night we were told by a neighbor that a man with a semi-automatic weapon had been seen walking around our first-ring suburb, and Twitter reported that white supremacists were staying at … More The With-God Life: Breath and Fire
By the time this week is done, something like thirty members of the Bethel University faculty will learn that their positions are being eliminated after 2020-21. And even if I don’t lose my job, it’s likely that I’ll still be affected indirectly by restructuring and streamlining of departments and programs. For months, I’ve been dreading … More “Nothing for your journey”: The Future of the Christian Liberal Arts
I once called Easter Monday “that forgotten day of the church calendar seemingly dedicated to, well, getting on with our lives.” This year, when nothing feels all that normal, it’s probably less true that Easter’s joy will “[dissolve] into the mundane, predictable routine of the workweek.” But under quarantine or not, we’ll continue to spend … More The With-God Life: Call and Response
“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” No, I reflected two days ago: all I could do to mark Good Friday was to “imagine the unimaginable: the death of God.” This Easter Sunday, I woke asking myself another verse from that same spiritual: “Were you there when he rose up from the grave?” And … More The With-God Life: Christ is Risen!
So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. (John 19:16b-18) As a historian, everything I do hinges on the conviction … More The With-God Life: Were You There?
The Pietist Schoolman 